Will Russian And Chinese Military Forces On Syrian Soil Prevent Obama From Bombing Syria?
by Michael Snyder, Contributor
Activist Post
June 20, 2012
Everyone knows that the Obama administration has been steadily gearing up for a military campaign against Syria. Everyone also knows that Russia and China do not want to see this happen. Now Russia and China are sending military forces to Syria.
Will this show of military power be enough to prevent Barack Obama from bombing Syria? Or will Obama go ahead anyway and risk ruining relations with the Russians and the Chinese? Tensions are rising in the Middle East and the region is a powder keg that could erupt at any time. If someone makes the wrong move we could end up with World War III.
A number of sources have reported that the Obama administration has been contemplating a military campaign in Syria similar to what happened in Libya. The U.S. would institute a no-fly zone, bomb the Syrian government and the Syrian military, and provide heavy military hardware for the rebel forces on the ground.
According to a recent Debka report, the plans for such a campaign in Syria are close to being finalized….
As the violence in Syria continued to go from bad to worse in scope and intensity, US official sources had this to say Saturday, June 16, about planned US military operations in the war-torn country:
“The intervention will happen. It is not a question of ‘if’ but ‘when.’”
A Syrian Free Army rebel delegation is now in Washington to talk about their requestsfor heavy weapons from the Obama administration. In their meetings with US Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford and the State Department’s expert on Syria Fred Hof, the rebel leaders handed in two lists for approval: types of heavy weapons capable of challenging Bashar Assad’s armed forces and selected targets of attack to destabilize his regime.
Debkafile’s Washington sources disclose that the administration is very near a decision on the types of weapons to be shipped to the Syrian rebels and when. Most of the items Washington is ready to send have been purchased by Saudi Arabia and Qatar and are ready for shipment.
The White House is also close to deciding on the format of its military operation in Syria. Some sources are defining it as “Libya lite” – that is, a reduced-scale version of the no-fly zone imposed on Libya two years ago and the direct air and other strikes which toppled the Qaddafi regime.
What the Obama administration fails to grasp is that Syria is not Libya.
Syria has a lot more friends, and any attack on Syria would almost certainly cause a wider Middle East war to erupt.
For Russia and China, Syria is a red line that must not be crossed.
Now Russia and China are sending substantial military forces to Syria for “war games”. Obviously this is just an excuse to get troops into Syria. The following description of these upcoming “war games” is from a recent article in the Jerusalem Post….
According to ShamLife, China had gained Egyptian approval to allow 12 Chinese ships carrying military equipment to pass through the Suez Canal, and that these vessels would reach the Syrian ports of Tartous and Latakia in two weeks’ time.
ShamLife said Syrian air defense missiles and its coastal defense would be put to the test in the military exercises, and that 90,000 troops from the four countries would be involved in the war games along with 400 aircraft and 1,000 tanks and “hundreds of rockets.”
The exercises would be carried out after Syrian troops had ‘cleansed’ several cities where ‘armed groups’ – meaning Syrian opposition forces fighting against government troops loyal to President Bashar Assad – were gathering.
It is also being reported that the Russians are sending warships from the Black Sea Fleet to the Syrian coast to protect the Russian military base at Tartus.
The following is from a recent Los Angeles Times article….
Russia is preparing to dispatch a pair of warships carrying a contingent of Black Sea Fleet marines to its logistics base in the Syrian port of Tartus, the Russian Interfax news agency reported Monday, in what appeared to be another sign of the deteriorating security situation in the strife-ridden nation.
The report quoted an unidentified Russian naval source saying the amphibious ships Nikolay Filchenkov and Tsezar Kunikov, accompanied by the rescue tug SB-15, were ‘preparing for a non-routine departure’ for Tartus, Russia’s only Mediterranean base.
In addition, according to a recent article in the Telegraph, a Russian ship that was apparently taking attack helicopters to Syria has been stopped off the coast of Scotland….
A Russian ship believed to be carrying helicopters and missiles for Syria has been effectively stopped in its tracks off the coast of Scotland after its insurance was cancelled at the behest of the British government.
Obviously the Russians and the Chinese are trying to stop an attack on Syria.
Things are getting very tense, and that is not going to change any time soon.
Just check out how a recent CBS News report described a private meeting between Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit in Mexico….
The two men barely looked at each other. You could just feel, sort of, the tension between them. And the body language really represented how far apart the two leaders remain on the issue of Syria.
Needless to say, it was not a pleasant conversation. In fact, Putin reportedly wasvery direct with Obama….
Apparently President Obama got a bit of a lecture from Putin about some other failed transitions that are going on around the world.
When Barack Obama was elected, many Americans expected him to keep his campaign promises and greatly reduce U.S. military action around the globe.
Instead, Obama has actually greatly expanded U.S. military action around the globe.
It isn’t reported on much in the mainstream media, but the U.S. military is actually at war in Yemen, in Somalia, in Pakistan, and in a whole bunch of other countries all over the planet.
The following is from a must-read Wired article that just came out….
The center of the US drone war has shifted to Yemen, where 23 American strikes have killed an estimated 155 people so far this year. But you wouldn’t know about it — or about the cruise missile attacks, or about the US commando teams in Yemen — by reading the report the White House sent to Congress about US military activities around the globe. Instead, there’s only the blandest acknowledgement of ‘direct action’ in Yemen, ‘against a limited number of [al-Qaida] operatives and senior leaders.’
The report, issued late Friday, is the first time the United States has publicly, officially acknowledged the operations in Yemen and in nearby Somalia that anyone with internet access could’ve told you about years ago. But the report doesn’t just fail to admit the extent of the shadow war that America is waging in the region. It’s borderline legal — at best. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 requires the president to inform Congress about any armed conflicts America is engaged in. Friday’s report isn’t just uninformative about Yemen. It doesn’t even mention the US campaign in Pakistan, even though the Defense Secretary says America is ‘at war‘ there.
Obama has shown contempt for Congress on so many levels. Not only does he not ask them when he starts a new war, he barely even informs them of what is going on.
In the past, Russia and China kind of stood aside as the U.S. imposed its will all over the Middle East, but that is no longer the case.
Russia and China are clearly saying “no” to military action against Syria.
Will Obama back down or will he defy the Russians and the Chinese?
It is going to be very interesting to watch.
And this emerging alliance between the Russians and the Chinese is going to be something to keep a close eye on. We have been seeing increasing cooperation between the two nations in a bunch of different areas.
If the United States is not very careful, it could find itself in a direct conflict with both Russia and China in the years ahead.
The Russian military and the Chinese military have been very busy preparing for such a conflict. The U.S. military has been focused on other things.
Sadly, most Americans know much more about “America’s Got Talent” and “American Idol” than they do about geopolitics these days.
This article first appeared here at the American Dream. Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here.
Interview: Syrian Intervention Could Cause 100,000 Deaths [audio]
Voice of Russia
June 15, 2012
Alexei Pushkov: “humanitarian” intervention to Syria will lead to chaos
Tom Hedegard
Audio: Download
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Russia is ready to look for answers together with Western countries. And we don’t accept this kind of criticism. And we don’t accept this kind of mythology that the insurgents are pro-reform people. Because we know very well that they have been financed and armed by monarchies of the Persian Gulf. They don’t even hide this fact and I hardly see a situation where democracy in Syria will be established with the help of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
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Alexei Pushkov, the Chairman of the Russian Duma’s International Affairs Committee, offers his assessment of the conflict unfolding in Syria in an exclusive interview with the Voice of Russia.
I think that what we have been hearing from the US is very partial. Somehow the US thinks that the only source of civil war in Syria is the government, which is not the case. There are 33 thousand people who are fighting the Syrian government, and they’re fighting the Syrian government with heavy weapons, not just Kalashnikovs and pistols.
It’s heavy machine guns, it’s anti-tank guns and all of these armaments were on display when a ship coming from Libya full of US weapons was arrested in Lebanon. On the photos you can see what kind of armament was sent to the insurgents. It’s Syrian force which has been trained outside of Syria. Some of them are really professional fighters. There’s some information about people who have been fighting in Libya, now are fighting on the side of the insurgents. I think that the US had better look at what kind of people they try to support there and what these people will bring to Damascus.
Until now Syria was a secular country where different ethnicities and different religious factions were living in peace and for many years – that’s very valuable. You have Christians, Sunnis, Alawis, Druze, Kurds and quite a few other groups. And if all of this explodes, I don’t think that we’ll have 10 thousand victims, we’ll have maybe 100 thousand victims. Russia wants to prevent this explosion. What we hear from our Western partners is that Assad should go and they are willing to support the insurgency. But supporting the insurgency, they are basically throwing oil into the flame. That is why Russia suggested having international conference where we can try to find the solution that would be proposed to both sides in the Syrian conflict. The key Russian position is that we are ready to influence Assad’s government, but the West should influence the insurgents. Otherwise it will not work out.
Do you think that the Western media was unfairly portraying Russia?
I think one of the reasons the West has been so critical about Russia in the Syrian issue is that the West doesn’t have a policy at all towards Syria. I’m not pretending that Russia has the answers, but Russia fulfills a very important role for the Western media. By this could not criticize their own governments for not having any kind of solutions. Because the only political program the West has is that Assad should go. OK, what happens after Assad goes? How the regime falls? Who will come in its place?
Is Russia prepared for that situation?
Russia is ready to look for answers together with Western countries. And we don’t accept this kind of criticism. And we don’t accept this kind of mythology that the insurgents are pro-reform people. Because we know very well that they have been financed and armed by monarchies of the Persian Gulf. They don’t even hide this fact and I hardly see a situation where democracy in Syria will be established with the help of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
And finally there have been some accusation that Russian foreign policy towards Syria is driven by its business interests. How do you respond to that?
I think that the most important thing is not business. Syria doesn’t play such a huge role in Russian foreign trade. The key factor in the Russian position is a very clear stand against so-called regime change, against so-called humanitarian intervention. We think that the Libyan example showed that these kinds of interventions lead to chaos and to the creation of a parallel international law: when you have a UN charter and at the same time you have some kind of parallel law which is being conducted by either friends of Syria or the Coalition of the Willing, something which goes around the UN rules and charter. We don’t want to accept a world where there would be another international law instead of the internationally accepted one. Syria is just a very serious example of the Russian desire to fight for international law which is universally accepted.
US Attempting to Trigger Full Proxy War in Syria
Torrent of propaganda, foreign arms, and political sabotage seek to fulfill broader plans for destabilization.
by Tony Cartalucci
June 17, 2012 – Over the last week, the US has been outright caught lying – admittedly by Pentagon officials, regarding Russian gunships being shipped to Syria. In New York Times’ “Copters in Syria May Not Be New, U.S. Officials Say,” a senior defense department official admitted when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made her fraudulent claim regarding Russian weapon shipments, she “put a little spin on it to put the Russians in a difficult position.”
The New York Times continued by stating, “Mrs. Clinton’s claim about the helicopters, administration officials said, is part of a calculated effort to raise the pressure on Russia to abandon President Bashar al-Assad, its main ally in the Middle East,” indicative of the campaign of propaganda and lies orchestrated by the US State Department, the British Foreign Office, and Western and Gulf State news outlets around the world to demonize both the Syrian government and its extensive allies around the world, contrary to the facts on the ground.
Also adding to the torrent of propaganda was Human Rights Watch (HRW) and US State Department-run Amnesty International, both of which are funded by convicted criminal, Wall Street speculator George Soros, which attempted to level charges of “abuses” by Syrian forces, as always based solely on the “witness accounts” of admitted members of the opposition. The United Nations as well attempted to frame Syrian forces for using “children” as human shields. Despite having 300 monitors on the ground in Syria, again, the report was compiled solely using opposition “witness accounts,” reminiscent of a late 2011 UN human rights report also compiled from opposition hearsay, in Geneva – not even Syria – and compiled by Karen Koning AbuZayd.
AbuZayd is concurrently a member of the Washington D.C. based Middle East Policy Council, along side current and former associates of Exxon, the US military, the CIA, the Saudi Binladin Group, the US-Qatari Business Council and both former and current members of the US government – illustrating an immense conflict of interests and devaluing the UN’s credibility to unprecedented lows.
However, as evidence continues to point the finger at opposition sectarian extremists for the massacre at Houla, Syria, and at NATO-armed foreign fighters filtering into Syria to repeat atrocities now fully documented in Libya, organizations like Amnesty, HRW, and even the UN itself are increasingly losing credibility to convince all but the weakest of minds.
Despite this, the West continues to seek ways of arming sectarian extremists operating in Syria under the banner of the “Free Syrian Army” (FSA), with the Washington Post confirming in their article, “Syrian rebels get influx of arms with gulf neighbors’ money, U.S. coordination,” that weapons, cash, and logistical support is indeed being provided to terrorist forces in Syria by the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other Gulf States even as the West berated the Syrian government for “violating” the terms of a ceasefire allegedly being brokered by Kofi Annan. The West is doing in reality what they admittedly are lying about Russia doing for the sake of “raising pressure,” with Russia in turn leveling much more credible accusations against the US for arming sectarian extremists in Syria.
The Western press is now intent on portraying the violence in Syria as a “civil war,” despite the fact that the vast majority of weapons, cash, and fighters constituting the “Syrian opposition” are actually foreign. This includes hundreds of sectarian extremists who have invaded from Libya (and here) and Lebanon as planned since 2007 as described in Seymour Hersh’s “The Redirection” in the New Yorker.
Russia, Iran, Syria, China, and the ALBA nations of South America are attempting to promote the actual fulfillment of the Kofi Annan peace plan, seemingly sabotaged by the West from the very beginning. It appears that the West merely used the ceasefire as a means to demonize the Syrian government while regrouping, rearming, and redeploying their proxy forces throughout the region.
What follows next depends entirely on the resolve of the Syrian people to resist what is essentially a foreign proxy invasion – not a civil war. This will be affected greatly by the support Syria gets from a world increasingly aware of the “international community” led by Wall Street and London plotting Syria’s fall that would be but another step toward the inevitable destabilization and collapse of each remaining sovereign nation-state. The tools left for the West to utilize is propaganda and terror, both of which should be expected to be used with increasing frequency, even if by doing so it diminishes its overall effectiveness.
There is no turning back for the West, it has created a global cascade of destabilization, revealed its hand that it is aiming not only to overrun all of the Middle East, Central and Southeast Asia, but eventually Moscow and Beijing as well.
Syrian Rift Will Not Hamper Russia’s WTO Bid
White House | World | RIA Novosti
June 15, 2012
The disagreements between Washington and Moscow on ways to settle the current political crisis in Syria will not stand in the way of Russia’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), the White House said.
“We support Russia’s accession to the WTO and we support measures that need to be taken to help bring that about,” Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters on Thursday.
[CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE]
[hat tip: NWO Truth]
Russia Reportedly Preparing 2 Divisions, Spetsnaz Brigade for Deployment to Syria; Mini-Goebbels Ben Rhodes of Obama White House Runs Colossal Black Propaganda Op to Assist NATO Coup; Massacre of Alawites and Christians Looms; Cass Sunstein Destabilizes Vatican to Muzzle Protest
Webster G. Tarpley, Ph.D.
PressTV
June 12, 2012
[download video] [download audio]
China, Russia United Against Intervention in Syria
by Scott Stearns
VOA News
June 5, 2012
BATUMI, Georigia – China and Russia say they are united in opposing foreign intervention in Syria. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is to meet with allies Wednesday in Turkey to discuss how best to pursue a political transition to end President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.
Secretary of State Clinton says it is “pretty clear” that the main focus of international diplomacy must be on intensifying efforts to speed a political transition in Syria.
“We believe there is a way forward and we are going to continue to pursue that and we invite the Russians and the Chinese to be part of the solution of what is happening in Syria,” she said.
But China and Russia remain opposed to any effort to force Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad from power, a position their leaders re-stated again on Tuesday.
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman says Chinese President Hu Jintao and Russian President Vladimir Putin oppose a change of power by force in Syria and continue to call for a political dialogue between President Bashar al-Assad and his opponents.
President Putin and President Hu met in Beijing, where they repeated demands for an immediate end to 15 months of violence in Syria.
Russia and China, however, have repeatedly blocked tougher U.N. action against President Assad, including U.N. sanctions and the potential use of force.
Clinton spoke to reporters Tuesday in the Black Sea port of Batumi, following talks with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
She says the violence of the past 10 days shows that there must be change in Syria. “Peace and human dignity will not be possible in Syria without political change.
So I will look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues tomorrow in Istanbul,” she said.
Clinton meets Wednesday in Istanbul with diplomats from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the European Union, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates to discuss how best to pursue a political transition in Syria.
The U.N. and Arab League envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, is to brief U.N. members Thursday in New York before meeting Friday with Secretary Clinton in Washington.
[hat tip: The Intel Hub]
Huge Crop Circle Appears In Krasnodar, Russia. May 23, 2012 Ufo The Night Before! [video]
by BARRACUDA
Before It’s News
May 27, 2012
PN 